This is kind of a difficult question for me. When I think of childhood, I think of being in elementary school or younger and we were not allowed to watch that much television when I was that young. Since I was born in 1965 and what I would consider the point of going from childhood to adolescence would be around 1977 or so. Through the early parts of this time television consisted of four channels on a black & white television. The signal was usually poor and there was often very little on that was targeted towards children.

In my earlier years I think my favorite shows were the “Janie Show” an the “Cowboy Bob” show. these were two shows that had host that talked about children’s things and introduced the cartoons that were featured on them. The Janie Show was on every morning before school and Cowboy Bob was on in the afternoons, after school. The common thing about both was that they showed Hanna Barbara cartoons… Yogi & BooBoo, Huckleberry Hound, Wally Gator, Touche Turtle and Dum Dum, Snaggle Puss, Pixie & Dixie, and Mr. Jinx. Other favorites were the Flintstones, the Jetsons, the Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Show, Superfriends, Space Ghost, Voltron,, Fat Albert & the Cosby Kids, reruns of the Little Rascals, Leave It to Beaver, My Three Sons, and the original Micky Mouse Club (with Frankie Avalon & Annette Funicello).

Out of all these shows and characters, I cannot really say that any one was my favorite, as a child. Like most children, I liked the absurdity of the cartoons, the crazy things they did, the innocence of watching them through a child’s eyes. I like many of them still, but with the adult view of them. I now see the racism of the time, the sexism, the hidden innuendo, the social concerns of their times. Just to be clear, just because I like the cartoons does not mean I think a lot of their content is proper for the 21st century…or even then, really. This multitude of characters was the launching pad of my imagination and the beginnings of my obsession with science-fiction and fantasy.